24 replies to this topic

[umberla]

Hi, i have a problem...
i have lvl 52 thief with condition build, but seeing other topics im not really sure is that the way to go...
     So this is my current build and i was wondering can anyone tell is it any good and is power/crit build better than condition..
For startegy i get close with steal, start spaming DB when im out of initiative i dodge another DB
roll of initiative and again DB and in the middle drop some caltrops agian..if the target isnt dead yet i use dagger storm and finish him off.
        So yeah please tell me your thoughts on this and what i can do to improve...
My build-----http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoYlcmaPXey7E+5EBXBj6p4rot/wVB

[Khalif]

its good for lvl 52, but once you hit higher levels, and especially 80, SoM sucks. in order to benefit from it, you cannot use the heal, at all. (you lose passive). which makes you lose out on many of the heal related traits.



as for general strategy, dont use steal to close in from the start, its wasting the 3 ini you get from steal. just run in with sb or pistol and close the gap with auto attacks. use steal as a ini regener + gap closer (if you use withdraw..which you should).


Dont spam DB. remember, its a evasive attack. use it like one. be moderate with it.

here is my bleed build at 80:



and some playthrough / soloing:

[Loperdos]

Khalif, on 04 January 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

its good for lvl 52, but once you hit higher levels, and especially 80, SoM sucks. in order to benefit from it, you cannot use the heal, at all. (you lose passive). which makes you lose out on many of the heal related traits.

as for general strategy, dont use steal to close in from the start, its wasting the 3 ini you get from steal. just run in with sb or pistol and close the gap with auto attacks. use steal as a ini regener + gap closer (if you use withdraw..which you should).

Dont spam DB. remember, its a evasive attack. use it like one. be moderate with it.

~snip

Yep. I definitely prefer Withdraw over SoM, for the reason mentioned above, once you get higher you cannot use the active of the signet, thus effectively removing your heal-on-demand ability for those times where you misjudge a dodge.  This CAN be countered by running with iHouse (Shadow Refuge) for that same purpose, but that kinda shoots one of your utility slots down where you could be getting that heal-on-demand from your actual heal slot.  That being said, SoM can be relatively effectively paired with DB, and especially effective when paired with Daggerstorm + SoM + Haste.

Using steal as a gap closer can work, but if and only if you don't use the trait that gives you 3 ini back on a steal.  If you are traited with that, its more effective to use steal in the middle of a fight for the +3 ini rather than using it as a gap closer.  For example, on my bleeder build I generally get in close, drop 3 DBs right away > steal > stolen skill and a few more DBs.  If you have that trait, then its more effectively used in the middle of a fight.

I'm gonna have to disagree with Khalif on this final point, but all of it depends on what type of bleeder build you are running.  With Khalif's build (and the build it looks like you are building towards) you are a lot more dependent on stealth (which is not a bad way to build) and timing your evades correctly, so yeah, spamming DB isn't necessarily the best plan.  That being said, DB is arguably a thief's best application of bleeds, so if you are trying to do a bleeder build, getting the most out of your bleeds is a priority, right?  This is where the type of bleeder build I run comes in.  I have no dependence on stealth, but still have quite good survivability, as well as condition damage viability.  My build is centered around trickery and acrobatics, using DB as a spam move as well as using caltrops and dodgetrops to increase the amount of bleeds on a mob (or multiple mobs).  With this kind of bleeder build, you absolutely want to spam DB as much as possible (this isn't to say that if you get the chance to use DB as an evade to not do it, but getting as many DBs out as fast as possible is more of the emphasis, rather than using it in moderation).

So there you go.  Two different types of bleeder builds with two different emphasis, one on stealth and evading properly; the other on being as mobile and active in the fight as possible.  Both effective in their own right, a lot of it depends on which playstyle more appeals to you.

[Khalif]

Loperdos, on 04 January 2013 - 10:07 PM, said:

I'm gonna have to disagree with Khalif on this final point, but all of it depends on what type of bleeder build you are running.  With Khalif's build (and the build it looks like you are building towards) you are a lot more dependent on stealth (which is not a bad way to build) and timing your evades correctly, so yeah, spamming DB isn't necessarily the best plan.  That being said, DB is arguably a thief's best application of bleeds, so if you are trying to do a bleeder build, getting the most out of your bleeds is a priority, right?  This is where the type of bleeder build I run comes in.  I have no dependence on stealth, but still have quite good survivability, as well as condition damage viability.  My build is centered around trickery and acrobatics, using DB as a spam move as well as using caltrops and dodgetrops to increase the amount of bleeds on a mob (or multiple mobs).  With this kind of bleeder build, you absolutely want to spam DB as much as possible (this isn't to say that if you get the chance to use DB as an evade to not do it, but getting as many DBs out as fast as possible is more of the emphasis, rather than using it in moderation).

sorry, i suppose i wasnt clear enough. my point wasn't really to not SPAM DB, but rather spam it at the right sequence.

most people with DB will come in, DB 3x and call it a day. but what you are forgetting is that DB is an evade, DB takes roughly .75-1sec to animate, which is also your window to evade.

it is far wiser to time these DBs in such fashion that each application of DB is relatively close to the attack of your opponent, such that you dodge 3 of their attacks. (and if you pvp long enough, you realize each class usually has a "rotation" they like to stick to).


again, its not cast DB, wait 5 secs and do it again, but rather delay DB just enough (1 sec? 2 secs?) to dodge the attack,

[umberla]

I undertood both of your points but the thing that bothers me is that am i really helping my team with the condition build, because thiefs are supposed to be massive dps and since necro can do better bleed than thiefs and its just i have that feeling that im not using my thief properly and so not being usefull to my team, but also i hate/dont know how to play glascanon....

[Khalif]

umberla, on 05 January 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

are supposed to be massive dps and since necro can do better bleed than thiefs

i beg to deffer. thief can maintain 15-20 bleeds easily. i do not think necros can do that.


also your bleeds (assume you put 15) will hit around 114 per tick, 15 ticks = 1710/sec. not too shabby if you ask me.

[The Shadow]

Khalif, on 06 January 2013 - 01:27 AM, said:

i beg to deffer. thief can maintain 15-20 bleeds easily. i do not think necros can do that.


also your bleeds (assume you put 15) will hit around 114 per tick, 15 ticks = 1710/sec. not too shabby if you ask me.

Oh yes they can, at 140 (ish) per tick + lots of vulnerability too.

[Khalif]

The Shadow, on 06 January 2013 - 03:22 AM, said:

Oh yes they can, at 140 (ish) per tick + lots of vulnerability too.

140? damn, i def wanna see this cond. build for my necro.

links for traits?

[The Shadow]

Khalif, on 06 January 2013 - 05:02 AM, said:

140? damn, i def wanna see this cond. build for my necro.

links for traits?

Standard Conditionmancer BIP + Epidemic bleed build;

30/20/20, Staff + S/D, Rabid gear, sigil of Corrption + Earth.

I remember seeing a great guide somewhere in the Necro sub-section but I can't seem to find it. Maybe it was posted somewhere else.

[Khalif]

The Shadow, on 06 January 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

Standard Conditionmancer BIP + Epidemic bleed build;

30/20/20, Staff + S/D, Rabid gear, sigil of Corrption + Earth.

I remember seeing a great guide somewhere in the Necro sub-section but I can't seem to find it. Maybe it was posted somewhere else.

im more interested in the 140 tick. Ive ran that build, and no where can it get 140 (lets leave out SoC, because I didnt count it in thief bleeds either). the relative max anyone can is around 114-120 (w/o SoC / Might).

in addition to not being able to get 140 w/o SoC, i wasn't able to keep nearly as much stacks as a thief.

[The Shadow]

Khalif, on 06 January 2013 - 11:14 PM, said:

im more interested in the 140 tick. Ive ran that build, and no where can it get 140 (lets leave out SoC, because I didnt count it in thief bleeds either). the relative max anyone can is around 114-120 (w/o SoC / Might).

in addition to not being able to get 140 w/o SoC, i wasn't able to keep nearly as much stacks as a thief.

140 tics. Couldn't apply more than 9 stacks, golem died too quickly. As you can see I didn't use SoC. All I did was use 2, 5, 1 and BIP. Didn't even pop DS for Fury.

It is easy to get 20 bleed stacks on a Necro and also easy to sustain 15+. I'd show you but like I said; shit dies too quick.

I wont bother to mention all the other reasons Necro is far superior in comparison to Thief when it comes to bleed builds because I assume you're aware.

Edited by The Shadow, 06 January 2013 - 11:56 PM.

[Khalif]

The Shadow, on 06 January 2013 - 11:49 PM, said:

140 tics. Couldn't apply more than 9 stacks, golem died too quickly. As you can see I didn't use SoC. All I did was use 2, 5, 1 and BIP. Didn't even pop DS for Fury.

It is easy to get 20 bleed stacks on a Necro and also easy to sustain 15+. I'd show you but like I said; shit dies too quick.

I wont bother to mention all the other reasons Necro is far superior in comparison to Thief when it comes to bleed builds because I assume you're aware.

what im more interested is where the extra cond damage is coming from.

[The Shadow]

Khalif, on 07 January 2013 - 01:26 AM, said:

what im more interested is where the extra cond damage is coming from.

Rabid + Runes of the Undead + Might

[Reverse Ghost]

Khalif, on 07 January 2013 - 01:26 AM, said:

what im more interested is where the extra cond damage is coming from.

The Shadow, on 07 January 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

Rabid + Runes of the Undead + Might

As well as Shadow's information, here is a quick little chart you can refer to in order to find out what your Condition Damage stat will produce in terms of bleed damage per tick: https://docs.google....S3ZLX2FpbHNmSGc

[Kovares]

The Shadow, on 06 January 2013 - 11:49 PM, said:

140 tics. Couldn't apply more than 9 stacks, golem died too quickly. As you can see I didn't use SoC. All I did was use 2, 5, 1 and BIP. Didn't even pop DS for Fury.

It is easy to get 20 bleed stacks on a Necro and also easy to sustain 15+. I'd show you but like I said; shit dies too quick.

Actually, that is easy on thiefs too. They also have it easier to keep up their entire stack on multiple enemies, where necromancer falls short. Granted, they can epidemic every once in a while, but since more of their condition builders are single target, they won't sustain as well. Also, BiP is nice, but the 10 stacks of might will be there only for ~50% of the time, so it comes down to 5 sustained stacks which is not all that much...

[diadox]

Kovares, on 10 February 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

Actually, that is easy on thiefs too. They also have it easier to keep up their entire stack on multiple enemies, where necromancer falls short. Granted, they can epidemic every once in a while, but since more of their condition builders are single target, they won't sustain as well. Also, BiP is nice, but the 10 stacks of might will be there only for ~50% of the time, so it comes down to 5 sustained stacks which is not all that much...

Actually, all of the necromancer's weapon skill applicators of bleeding apart from scepter 1 are aoe. Also, I wouldn't consider epidemic some bonus you get to perform every once in a while, seeing as the cooldown is only 15(12) seconds. Other than that, consider that you can use epidemic to effectively double the effect of aoe conditions on all targets except your epidemic victim (on all enemies that are hit with the aoe skills and are within 600 units of the epidemic target).

Edited by diadox, 10 February 2013 - 12:23 PM.

[Spector1331]

Necros pretty much do conditions and AoE conditions better than anyone in the game. It's their niche. It's not a knock on Thieves, they just do it better. Epidemic is just that good as diadox said above me.

[Nocturnip]

I run a bleeding build on my thief, but i go for bleed duration rather than the damage. Which makes my death blossoms to last for about 17 secs at around 105 per tic.
Does anyone know if this is more efficient than just adding a bunch of condition damage?

[Minion]

The Shadow, on 07 January 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

Rabid + Runes of the Undead + Might

What I'm more interested in is Khalif's disbelief.

[Loperdos]

Nocturnip, on 13 February 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

I run a bleeding build on my thief, but i go for bleed duration rather than the damage. Which makes my death blossoms to last for about 17 secs at around 105 per tic.
Does anyone know if this is more efficient than just adding a bunch of condition damage?

From what I remember about the discussions of condition duration vs condition damage, the biggest factor (or at least one of the main factors) is where you are using your build.  In PvP (which may not apply in this situation since this is the PvE forums) going bleed duration isn't smart because 9/10 times, the person you drop your bleeds on will clear them before they have a chance to run their full course, thus reducing the amount of damage done to the person.  In that situation, its certainly better to stack condition damage for more bleed per tick rather than more ticks.

In PvE, it also kinda depends on the situation.  If you are running against mobs that have no condition removal (which is a good number of them, iirc) then condition duration can work, it'll certainly help you get your bleed stacks up to 25.  That being said, on a condition damage build thief, I have not found it difficult to get the bleed stacks up to 52 even without a whole lot of condition/bleed duration thrown in there; granted, its a bit tougher to maintain that many, but not impossible.  If you are running PvE with a group where there is more than one condition damage build (in particular, bleed build) then condition duration doesn't help you much because the 25 bleed cap is hit quite quickly, even with only 2 condition builds running (which is made even worse in large DEs where the 25 bleed cap is hit almost instantaneously).  In that case, condition damage wins out because its another instance of how much damage per tick you can get because in essence, the 25 bleed cap negates your longer bleeds.

TL:DR, Overall, IIRC, bleed duration is kinda lackluster past a certain point because of the bleed cap as well as condition removal (PvP mostly) and condition damage wins out in more situations.  If you are mainly running solo PvE, condition/bleed duration isn't horrible.

[Khalif]

Minion, on 13 February 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

What I'm more interested in is Khalif's disbelief.

congrats, might stacking...which is only achievable for 12 secs (30 sec cd)? sorry, i dont count that as raw damage from bleeds.

raw damage = condition damage w/o buffs/food


as for necros, i have YET to see a necro put 25 stacks. at max ive seen is 10-15.

now granted necros have much better condition management than thieves, I have yet to see conclusive evidence that they are better.

Edited by Khalif, 13 February 2013 - 09:35 PM.

[Vysander]

Khalif, on 13 February 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

congrats, might stacking...which is only achievable for 12 secs (30 sec cd)? sorry, i dont count that as raw damage from bleeds.

raw damage = condition damage w/o buffs/food


as for necros, i have YET to see a necro put 25 stacks. at max ive seen is 10-15.

now granted necros have much better condition management than thieves, I have yet to see conclusive evidence that they are better.

yes, necros would have a very hard time stacking 25 stacks of bleed on an enemy by themselves. The problem is most classes have some kind of build that does bleeds, and skills used in many non condition builds that cause bleeds. (though, this in itself is by no means a deterent from going condi dmg thief)

That being said, a condition dmg thief will never be as effective as a condition dmg necro (not even sure why they're being compared). They are different roles. There is no way for a thief to apply as many bleeds and to as large a number of enemies as a necro.

Also, you cant disregard something like stacks of might from epidemic. Spec'd properly its down time is negligible (and up more then long enough to kill whoever is epidemic'd)

As others have mentioned, sustained ticks of 140+ is common for necro's (at least the ones i roll with).

The real question is, why does a condi dmg thief need to be compared to a condi dmg necro.... one classes ability to perform in a certain area is not dependent on how another class performs in that area. Yes there can be issues with bleed stacking, but that should be considered upon forming a group (and i suppose if you don't have the money for multiple sets of armor) not when choosing what playstyle you enjoy.

[Minion]

Khalif, on 13 February 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

congrats, might stacking...which is only achievable for 12 secs (30 sec cd)

It's PvE, mang. The necro's bleeds and indeed the thief's are AoE. This means any downtime is truly negligible as you have to accommodate run-time between mobs. That's mobs of enemies, not mobiles. Either way, it all averages out, DPS-wise.

[The Shadow]

Khalif, on 13 February 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

congrats, might stacking...which is only achievable for 12 secs (30 sec cd)? sorry, i dont count that as raw damage from bleeds.

raw damage = condition damage w/o buffs/food


as for necros, i have YET to see a necro put 25 stacks. at max ive seen is 10-15.

now granted necros have much better condition management than thieves, I have yet to see conclusive evidence that they are better.

Ok sorry, I exaggerated every so slightly. 20+ sustained stacks. Content?

By your definition of "raw damage", every single class performs exactly the same, so comparison at all... becomes somewhat... stupid? Well no.. Necro is better off the bat and does more per tick anyway because they have far more toughness than a Thief does (assuming Undead).

That said, I genuinely don't understand your complete disregard for Might stacking because a Necro can clearly do it better than a Thief can. Unless Thief haz BiP or unless there's a constant fire field nearby where the Thief chooses to waste all his initiative cluster-finishing it as opposed to actually doing any damage.

Necros are better in this comparison, though there should be none, because they deal more DPS, to more foes, via bleed damage and are far more durable to boot... can re-apply via auto-attack, don't need to consider resource management etc... not to mention the fact that they easily stack a bunch of other conditions and can proc sigils due to insanely high precision.

There shouldn't really be any debate here because I would have thought these things to be fairly obvious. My main's a Thief. I'm one of the biggest Thief advocates here and probably play the class more than anyone on this forum... but at the same time, I have no shame in admitting that we are very very very ineffective in the way of Condition builds, in terms of DPS, when compared (if one can even call it that) to the likes of Necros, Mesmers and Engineers. It simply isn't where our strengths lie and that is absolutely fine with me.

I'm not saying a Thief that runs a bleed build is bad or useless. But the strengths of such builds lie in the survivability one can achieve as opposed to the DPS, which frankly, will always be sub-par when compared to other classes... So it makes you wonder exactly which situations call for such survivability via Condition builds. I certainly don't think PvE is the answer because you simply waste the bleed stack cap as someone else in your party could (probably) be making a far greater contribution to party-wide DPS via bleeds... while you could be contributing more to party-wide DPS by going Power/ Crit build.

As for what's more fun... well that's entirely up to personal preference. But regardless of fun it is just somewhat selfish to say "Oh hey * it, * you team, I like dem bleedz, I'll do it so none of you will do any proper damage" especially when the only real viable path for Necro is condition builds.

Vysander, on 14 February 2013 - 09:44 PM, said:

Also, you cant disregard something like stacks of might from epidemic. Spec'd properly its down time is negligible (and up more then long enough to kill whoever is epidemic'd)

Actually Khalif was right. BiP and Epidemic are separate utility skills. One grants you with 10 stacks of Might on a 30 second cool down for 12 secnds (BiP) while Epidemic (12/15s recharge) is the skill that enables a Necro to spread the conditions to foes within a radius of 600p.

That being said, the down time is pretty negligible because 50% uptime of +350 Condition damage is not something to scoff at.. but also.. might or no might.. Necro spreads conditions to more foes better thereby doing more DPS via bleeds. Unless you can reliably and repeatedly LDB over 5 foes and never run out of initiative which I guarantee is impossible.

Edited by The Shadow, 16 February 2013 - 05:38 AM.

[umberla]

So....i gather that thief with bleed build isn't the best way to go and be usefull ( max potential) of course  i know that  more than 50% of performance depends of players skill....but if i would to start DPS build..what rotation and build ( up to date) you would recomend and what kind of stats on my armor should i be focusing on..
Thanks in advance

Edited by umberla, 17 February 2013 - 09:12 PM.